For the past few years, a growing number of users, analysts, and experts raised alarms about a truth that feels obvious to a lot of people who surf around in web browsers: the quality of Google results is in serious decline. Google disagrees.
The dangers of a monopoly. No matter how bad Google gets people will still use it because, in many people’s minds, there is no other search engine.
What are those? DDG, Bing, Ecosia etc. are all not really better than Google. I haven‘t tried Kagi yet, mostly because it costs money.
I’m using Qwant and it gives me better results than Google. Even Startpage does and it’s using Google behind the scenes.
Google managed to fuck up their personalization so much it makes the results worse (it’s almost like they only really care about tailoring the ads /s). And I’m suspecting it’s by design, if the results suck the users are more likely to either press the ads or go through more result pages, therefore seeing more ads.
I am actually kinda ok with DDG, but the results are… not always very great and the second page is filled with weird websites related to my location…
Maybe i should try both Kagi and Searx
You can actually try kagi for free. 100 searches/month should be enough for you to decide if it’s worth the money to you.
(Not affiliated; just a happy user)
i was struggling with DDG too, but in another post i saw someone recommend searx and it is actually really good.
Fyi searx is deprecated or at least not maintained and discontinued Switch to searxNG which is an active fork and it is really good :D
DDG is on pair with google, that’s enough for me. (in some topics far better and in some far worse)
I agree it does suck in general One thing I tried is using a metasearch engine and for the least part I find the results better and way more customizable (for reference I am self hosting searxNG)
Google search is horrendous now. Instead of showing you relevant search results, it’s become an advertising race to the top game. If they can find “sponsored” links or shopping results related to your search, those go to the very top space. It’s about to get way worse as the rise of AI continues to rot the brains of board room suits.
I use Ecosia and DDG. Ecosia on my personal laptop, and DDG on my phone browser.
Back in the early 00s (I think), there was a running joke about how the search engine Ask Jeeves had one purpose, and one purpose only: to amend any search to “where can I buy…?” Because no matter what you searched for, it would inevitably prioritise adverts and online shopping.
That’s what Google is now.
I also use Ecosia now. It’s powered by Bing on the back end, I believe, but the results are consistently better than what I get from Google. And it’s like… okay, yes, this is the world we live in now, where Bing is more useful than Google.
DDG keeps changing my search query because its “not returning a lot of results” or because it thinks I typo’d and it is infuriating to me, sometimes it doesnt even inform me that it did, not even giving me a link to click to get to my actual search query
'also noticed that it got worse around the same time google did
Yeah, jeez. The number of times I give up and Ctrl+F on the page I’ve clicked to, just to find that the phrase I double-quoted just does not exist there and that my time has been wasted
Honestly I don’t think it’s just Google, DDG has been getting worse as well, not quite as bad as Google but still similar issues where the thing I’m looking for is buried under spam sites built to a generic standard with shitty content but spectacular search engine optimization.
And pumping out sites and pages like that is optimal in the current market as it is the best way to get clicks, as supposed to investing in skilled writing, investigation and research.
The problem is that the major search engines have all kind of sat on their behinds about this and actively sold these bad websites assistance in gaming their search engine. The search engines would have to rebuild their search functions to find signs of bad sites and deprioritize them in the list, not just show things that seem relevant. They’ll probably never do this because then they’d hurt the part of their business that is helping shitty sites game the engine.
It’s AI-generated content. Someone is just telling the AI to generate content that will capture X search term. Like free google ads, except instead of configuring target keywords in a system designed to do that, they’re bridging the gap with content designed to capture search traffic.
Because of AI, this is flattened again to a simple config. You could have an adwords-like interface where you’re configuring target keywords and phrases, and then you just click “run” and you have a pile of content designed to connect the dots you configured. Here’s a keyword, here’s a URl. When people search this keyword I want them to end up at this URL. Write me an article that will meet both those criteria.
Maybe this AI shit is like the warp drive in the three-body problem: it feeds off a space filled with well-organized information, but when it’s used, it pollutes that environment with bullshit, rendering future use of that information ecosystem less valuable.
as supposed to
Not to be that guy, but it’s “as opposed to”. Hope this helps in the future!
I say supposed here in place of opposed as “ supposed” implies “a correct course of action”, rather than “an alternative but opposite course of action.”
“as opposed to” is an idiom that just means “in contrast”. You’re creating a contrast between what they’re actually doing as opposed to what they’re supposed to be doing. “As supposed to” doesn’t work as a preposition and doesn’t actually create a contrast on its own.
It’s kind of terrible now. Since late 2023, when I go to search technical specs of hardware, I am presented with a view that looks like browsing an online shopping catalog. It’s weird and unwanted. For personal use, I went back to DDG.
It’s gotten so hard to find authentic, useful results that people have started adding the word “Reddit” to search terms
I have definitely done that multiple times.
